September 27, 2011

But I've got to say: If the Segway hadn't already been made, the Obama administration would have funneled hundreds of millions of public money into developing it. And it would still only be ridden by that one guy, and as he scoots by, everybody who sees him thinks: No way!

But seriously folks, I have purchased 6 new autos in my adulthood, none of them made in the U.S. I would consider a Ford for my next car, but the residual ill will from the Chrysler and GM bailout/bankruptcies will not disappear in my buying lifetime.

Ran into the former president of the company making Segways about a year ago at an all-firm attorney retreat in Scottsdale.

The resort we were staying at was large enough that the security people used Segways to scoot around the place. I talked to one, and managed to get him to let me try one when I came back an hour later. He was about to do so, when this guy walks up and starts talking about Segways. He had a lot of great stories about them, including the time that GW Bush went flying over the handle of one, naturally caught on film. This guy's decision was whether to take the hit on bad publicity by pointing out that Bush (43) was avoiding hitting something like a kid or pet. And, that Bush (41) was riding another just feet away. His decision was to take the publicity hit, for the sake of the country.

One probably little known fact is that Segways can go much faster than they are allowed to go, and that the control of this is in the big key thing that is inserted to make them go. Also, they have a special operations version that can go 45 or so MPH, and some of our special forces types train on them.

The guy had also apparently broken a leg on one - you can drop maybe 4 feet safely on them. Sometimes. And that was what he was trying to do at the time, when he crashed. But this feature lets a skilled operator go down steps quickly.

My rear is still raw from the GM reaming Obama gave me as a GM bondholder. As for GM and Chrysler products: I recently rented a fully equipped Grand Cherokee and while not bad it doesn't even come close in ride comfort and performance to a similarly priced Japanese or German import. My dad bought a Cadillac SUV which he now said sucks compared to the comparable priced Audi SUV and nothing rides smoother and quieter than a full size Lexus.

The only prayer those two companies have is that the next president and congress passes a national right to work act, repeals the Wagner Act and the NLRB. If that happens the companies have a chance to beef up their products without draining so many funds to the retirement plans. Otherwise the next bankruptcy filling will be a liquidation as the trade creditors and bondholders won't take another shafting again and the next time congress won't bail them out (the trade creditors and the UAW).

Reminds me of what I saw on a long stretch of I-70 between Green River Utah and the Colorado line. There was a Smart Car sandwiched between two semis, with traffic moving about 80 in the slow lane. I thought to myself that I surely didn't want to be in such, if the first semi stopped faster than the second one did. The car looked about half as long as a real one, and likely would have looked like a pancake if squashed by the two trucks.

I've been assuming that "Starting at $110,300" is what brought on the scream.

Seriously, for that kind of cash you can start looking at the Italian exotics and other more classy rich-person toys. "I spent a hundred grand on a Chevy" is the kind of statement that doesn't impress people so much as make them consider calling the nice men in the white coats.

@A Shmendrik, we recently replaced my wife's Subaru with a Ford product. She loves it! But I note that the Subaru was assembled in Indiana while her new car was assembled in Mexico. So tell me which care was made in the US?

I do feel the way you do about GM and Chrysler, but I have been hankering to own a hemi since I was a high school student (I won't say it was long ago, but we took notes in cuneiform on clay tablets). So maybe when my almost teenaged Intrepid bites the dust I'll replace it with a Charger instead of a Mustang.

"The ZR1 is the perfect midlife crisis car for Meade. You need to buy him one."

Midlife? Well, I hope he lives to be 114.

You need to click the Corvette tag and find the old comments threads advising me whether or not to buy a Corvette. Meade was on the side of buying an Audi TT, which, in the end, after my Beetle got crushed, I did buy. Later, Meade arrived in Madison and took over driving it.

Now, you speculate about when Meade had a midlife crisis, if ever, and whether he's got one now or yet to come... if you like.

I can remember when people, i.e. liberals, i.e. progressives, i.e. socialists, were demanding that the U.S. federal government subsidize the development of high definition televsion, insisting that the Japanese would monopolize the market if we did not sink billions of tax dollars into it.

Can you imagine how crappy and expensive HDTV would be if the federal government had run it instead of the free market?

And Professor, I was kind of impressed by your TT, but it was not you? And from the sound of it, you still have not learned to appreciate it?Meade should get you to visit with Bob Bondurant and learn about the finer things in life.

In fairness to the Segway, while the insane hype of "reinventing our cities" unsurprisingly fell through, they've become quite popular, I hear, for warehouse workers and (local example from here in Portland) transit police and downtown cops.

So they're actually, despite looking dorky, a useful invention - and with not a cent of public money needed.

(Plus, seconded what Iowahawk and Shmendrik said.

Hell will freeze over before I buy a GM product new. Chrysler is only slightly better in terms of possibility, in that I might consider it in a few decades if they're not bankrupt.

I like it. The performance is awesome and at least world class. I like the look too. It's kind of how a 70's sports car would look if they didn't have a government mandated brain fart back then. It's not at all European looking. I like the European look in most cases, but this is frickin Vet. It's very American looking and just right.

And having a great time after the kids have grown and you finally have money is the opposite of a crisis. It's called a crisis out of pure envy.

It was mine and he gave it to the union to guarantee I will have to pay more for the car than needed.

It will cost taxpayers around 14 billion, or, just a tad north of the 12 billion in cash that was lost in Iraq. Anyone remember?

"One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack.

"They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.

"The LS7.R engine is a variation of the LS7 used in the highly successful C6.R American Le Mans Series racecar. It was crowned as Global Motorsport Engine of the Year by a jury of 50 race engine engineers on the Professional Motorsport World Expo 2006 in Cologne, Germany," according to Wiki.

"The memorandum details the casual manner in which the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbursed the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets."

BrianE - I went to a gearhead site looking for a large funnel to pour gas without spilling. Now the adserver bots think I really want a crate motor. You can get an LS7 for the small price of $27K. Plus shipping. Without a car surrounding it.

That's not so ugly a car as it is a crappy representation. The picture is supposed to give the impression that it was taken with about a 24mm lens from about a foot away. Look down the ad for a better profile picture. It's not a bad looking car if you like recent Corvettes.

A. Shmendrik said:"But seriously folks, I have purchased 6 new autos in my adulthood, none of them made in the U.S."

If you bought those six in the last two decades, you could have bought:Ford Focus/Escort (Mexico)Saturn Astra (Europe)Chevy Camaro (Quebec) - Pvs GenerationFord Crown Victoria (Canada)Chevy Aveo (Korea)Various Buicks (China) - Starting in 2011

So... Ford has apparently pulled the series of successful advertisements proclaiming "we didn't take bailout money so you should buy our cars" after being asked to do so by our government.

The part-owners of the competition.

Asked them to stop showing effective ads that make the competition look bad.

It's not just the MONEY garage. It's the corruption inherent in the resulting situation.

It's the notion that the auto industry itself is represented by a company, now partly owned by government itself, and can't be allowed to fail... or even face effective competition.

The auto industry wasn't going to fail. GM was going to fail. Other car manufacturers exist in the US and some weren't going to fail. And they'd fail even LESS if the big company about to go under wasn't artificially propped up using tax funds.

That's a slap in the face if there ever was one. Here you work hard and make responsible decisions, provide a product, and when the economic sh*t hits the fan you find that you're going to be able to squeak through it after all. And then after you've done that the other guy who couldn't compete not only gets a hand up, but you get asked not to point that out.

You get asked not to point that out by the people who have authority over your financial regulatory environment.

So... Ford has apparently pulled the series of successful advertisements proclaiming "we didn't take bailout money so you should buy our cars" after being asked to do so by our government.

Ford wasn't asked. They were threatened. If they didn't self-censor, the Obama Regime would unleash some tactics designed to harass and disrupt Ford's business. Some embarrassing factory raids to check for undocumented workers, for instance. Or pass down instructions through the huge Federal bureaucracy to stop buying Ford vehicles. In fact, the Obama Regime doesn't even need to name a specific threat, since everybody already understands that they have myriad ways to ruin you.

Synova & Dead Julius: Ford says they haven't pulled the ad. It's just out of rotation at the moment and will be back after four weeks, as with the rest of their ad cycle. Nor have they pulled it from YouTube.

As someone mentioned, the ZR-1 is one fabulous car, Euro supercar performance for way less. The cost savings are apparent in the interior trim and lack of sophistication in other areas, but it's still a magnificent car. And I daresay when something breaks it'd be far less expensive to fix than a Lambo, a consequence of the relative simplicity. I'd probably go with the Nissan GTR though, after-the-purchase money being no object, of course.

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